Strikes by Border Force were threatening the first restriction free Christmas in over three years for millions of passengers. More than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union were due to strike from Friday. People arriving in the UK might be made to wait in queues at passport controls for over two hours. Contingency plans also contemplated the possibility that they might be held on jets in order to avoid overcrowding in arrival halls. – The Sunday Times
The scale of losses incurred by Lloyds’s retirement scheme may be as high as £10bn following the September meltdown in UK markets. Market conditions was left without any other option than to sell a large amount of its position in shares in a hurry. The details, which were linked to the use of so-called liability driven investments, were revealed to MPs by Henry Tapper, the partner of Stella Eastwood, head of group pensions at Lloyds. Although the lender has said that that scheme’s funding position has not been materially impacted, analysts believe it may have lost a fifth of its asset value. – Financial Mail on Sunday
Lawrence Stroll and his financial backers were edging closer to owning 30% of Aston Martin. That came after the purchase of around £50m-worth of shares in the carmaker over recent weeks. As a result, their stake stood at 27.9%. Stroll was understood to have no intention of launching a buyout of the carmaker. Chinese manufacturer Geely on the other hand had shown such interest as recently as mid-2022, but was rebuffed. Stroll’s coinvestors included JCB’s Lord Anthony Bamford and biotech billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli. – The Sunday Telegraph
UK house prices may be set to drop by as much as 8% in 2023, according to Halifax, after a rise of £55,000 in average values between March 2020 and August 2022. Such a decline would return them to roughly £258,295, where they were in April 2021. Savills meanwhile anticipated that if interest rates peaked at 4% and started easing back from mid-2024, then home values would begin to recover with the average house price recording a gain of 6% over the following five years. – The Financial Mail on Sunday
